In recent weeks, we’ve been looking into some of the mortgage lead providers serving lending institutions today. A broad spectrum of these opportunities exist. Some mortgage lead sources provide exclusive, pre-vetted leads at a higher cost. Others distribute the same lead to multiple companies, making it competitive but usually lowering the cost per lead. 

In short, in 2025, banks, credit unions, and mortgage brokers have a wide range of options if they want to purchase mortgage leads. Recently, we did a deeper dive into two of them: the Mortgage Research Center and FreeRateUpdate. Today, we’re repeating that effort with two alternative options: LendingTree and ICanBuy. 

LendingTree

LendingTree has been in the personal finance education game for a while. The company claims to have an audience of 30 million borrowers, and that 75% of a mortgage lending institution’s audience is already aware of it. 

How LendingTree works as a mortgage lead source

LendingTree has a few channels its lending partners can tap to get mortgage leads:

• Contact Center leads: With this option, the LendingTree team keeps your name in their back pocket. As their customer care agents speak with folks about their mortgage needs, they recommend your company when you would be a good fit. They then connect that lead directly with your loan officers by phone, giving them a vetted, engaged lead to move toward closing.
• Loan Explorer: This is LendingTree’s rate table offering. Advertising your company’s rates on one or more of the website’s rate tables gets you in front of their network of 30 million borrowers, helping you generate leads. Be advised, though, that these leads are generally nonexclusive. That means the lead’s information probably gets distributed to some other lenders, too — and your team needs to act fast to beat them to the punch. 
• Local Introductions: This is LendingTree’s lead product for lenders with multiple locations. It’s designed to help them connect with borrowers where they have branches or another targeted presence. 

If you want to distinguish yourself from other lenders on LendingTree’s platform, you can also pursue LendingTree Certification. That means completing courses through LendingTree University. The company certifies both individual loan officers and lending companies. If you’ve been looking for a way to upskill your team, this could be a good option to provide targeted training with the added benefit of a certification that helps your team stand out. 

Signs LendingTree might be right for your company

We hear from our network of mortgage partners that LendingTree offers one big value add: affordability. The leads coming from this company are generally much more affordable (think $30 instead of $250). 

That said, many LendingTree leads get priced that low because they’re nonexclusive. You’re getting that lead’s info, but so is your competition. As a result, these leads are usually best for companies in a position to spring into action to snag that lead’s attention. If you have AI texting set up, for example, it can automatically jump in to get the ball rolling even if none of your loan officers are available. 

LendingTree might also be a good option because they assign a dedicated account manager to all of their lending partners. With the low cost of entry and built-in support, they might be a good way to get your feet wet with purchasing mortgage leads. 

Getting started with LendingTree

You can learn more about LendingTree’s mortgage lead offering on its partner page. If you do decide you want to partner with the company to get leads, go through its lead form and someone from their team will get in touch.  

ICanBuy

ICanBuy is a division of one mortgage lead source we talked about recently: the Mortgage Research Center (MRC). The MRC focuses more on getting lenders in front of borrowers looking for government-backed loans, but ICanBuy takes a broader focus. 

How ICanBuy works as a mortgage lead source

ICanBuy has more than 40 publishers in its network, including Realtor.com, Movoto, MSN Money, and Microsoft Bing. ICanBuy embeds it rates tables — populated with rates from its lending partners — on these high-traffic sites. 

To give you an idea of how this looks, check out the mortgage rate table from Realtor.com. If you partner with ICanBuy, your rates could end up on that table. The ICanBuy team can also help you find the right advertising opportunities for you based on the area(s) and the types of borrowers you serve. 

ICanBuy operates on a cost-per-click model. That means that if a potential borrower clicks on your logo from any of the rate tables it hosts, you get charged — regardless of whether that lead completes your lead workflow or otherwise reaches out to you. 

Signs ICanBuy might be right for your company

If you didn’t like the idea of getting nonexclusive leads from LendingTree, ICanBuy is an excellent alternative. The company doesn’t even collect information about the lead (unlike the MRC). Instead, this MRC division takes the lead straight to the lender’s lead workflow or other landing page. 

Between that and the fact that you’re paying for every click, good candidates for advertising with ICanBuy are lenders who have strong lead workflows in place. You don’t want to pay for the click over to that workflow, only to lose that lead partway through. 

ICanBuy doesn’t require any time or spend commitment from your company in order to get started. You can set daily or monthly spend caps, too, so you can protect your advertising budget. So they’re a fairly flexible option. 

Getting started with ICanBuy

If you want to learn more about getting mortgage leads from ICanBuy, we did a webinar with their team that provides a lot of detailed information. And if you’re ready to explore this mortgage lead source with the ICanBuy team, you can complete their lead workflow to get started. 

These are just a couple of examples of the mortgage lead sources your lending institution can explore in 2025. Any way you go, though, it’s important to have things set up to make the most of the leads you get. You want a responsive team of loan officers, potentially supported by a quick, automated way to engage with leads, like AI texting. You want simple but meaningful lead workflows ready to capture any leads the provider sends to your website. And you probably want your own rate tables so that when leads do come to your site, they can see what’s on offer. 

We can help with all of that. To explore getting the tools you need to make the most of any mortgage leads you purchase, book a demo with our team today. 

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